Thoughts on static electricity and ESD related issues from a leading consultant

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Is a foot strap adequate?

When my floor is dissipative do I need to utilize a foot strap and a wrist strap, or is a foot strap adequate?

If you are handling ESD sensitive electronic components within an ESD Protected Area , then you body needs to be grounded with a resistance to ground less than 35 M ohms. If seated, this must be achieved using a wrist strap because you may take your feet off the floor, and grounding contact would then be broken.

If handling ESD sensitive components while standing, grounding can be achieved through footwear and flooring if the floor and footwear resistance is low enough. To achieve this, you may need a floor which has resistance-to-ground less than 35 Mohm as well as footwear which is less than 35 M ohm. You should wear two foot straps - one on each foot. If the resistance from body to ground when grounded by footwear/flooring is not < 35 Mohm, it may be advisable to wear a wrist strap to achieve < 35 Mohm.

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Understandably your article helped me altogether much in my college assignment. Hats high to you dispatch, intention look forward in the direction of more interrelated articles in a jiffy as its anecdote of my pick topic to read.

About Me

Dr Jeremy Smallwood has been working as a static electricity consultant since 1987. He started his company Electrostatic Solutions Ltd to give top level static electricity research and development and consultancy services in 1997.